T-Mobile Backtracks on Nixing Employer Discounts

T-Mobile CEO John Legere is pulling back on his move to do away with discounts for large employers.

In an updated blog post[1] on the matter, Legere said he's "been doing a lot of listening to our customers," and as a result everyone enrolled in the Advantage Program or who applied to enroll before April 1 will be able to keep a rate plan discount as long as they work at a participating employer and remain on a qualifying plan.

The backtracking comes after Legere posted a blog[1] earlier this week that announced that in the interest of simplifying T-Mobile's pricing plans across the board, the carrier would do away with discounted plans for large employers.

Legere declared T-Mobile Simple Choice plans already a "screaming deal" and tried to frame the move as part of its Un-Carrier strategy.

Legere said the old employer discount plans were "designed to help big carriers close big corporate contracts, with employees as bargaining chips."

"We aren’t playing that game anymore," Legere wrote in his first blog on the subject. "This change is about simplifying wireless for everyone...including employees of small and large companies alike."

In this most recent updated blog, Legere appears to have had a change of heart, but still manages to push his vision of a more simplified pricing structure.

"Listen, I still believe that complicated rate plan discounts and backroom deals with big corporations are unfair and part of what needs changing in the US wireless industry," he wrote. "And, I meant what I said: we’re not going to play that game anymore."

In an updated blog post on the matter, Legere said he's "been doing a lot of listening to our customers," and as a result everyone enrolled in the Advantage Program or who applied to enroll before April 1 will be able to keep a rate plan discount as long as they work at a participating employer and remain on a qualifying plan.